RPGWatch Feature - Nehrim Retrospective

October 5th, 2013, 04:20

Fluent has taken his time to write and submit a new article were he takes a look at one of the best mods for Oblivion called Nehrim. Check back on Monday were he interviews the team about their upcoming mod for Skyrim called Enderal - The Shards of Order.

When one thinks of Elder Scrolls games, a few things come to mind. At its core, a typical TES game provides an interesting world to explore, with lots of questing, looting, fighting and lore along the way. When you take those core attributes, use the same engine that was used in TES IV: Oblivion, and completely rework the game like the team at SureAI did, you are left with something that has to be played to be believed. Nehrim presents something entirely independent from the Elder Scrolls universe, yet is constructed from the same building blocks as Bethesda's monster RPG title.

Fluent mentioned in the end: "Some books are left in German, and some of the quest text is very poorly translated, but thankfully these things aren't the norm."
So yes, there is an english version. How was the voice acting btw? It was very professionally done in the german version.

For me one of the biggest deals was the skill system.
Oblivion had the worst skill system I saw in all the games I have played so far. They managed to not only make it un-intuitive but even anti-intuitive where the thing you naturally think is the best, is the worst for your character.
Nehrim fixes this issue and replaces it by a decent system.

What I also liked in Nehrim is the exploration. It feels much more rewarding. Less repetitive dungeons and you find these letter-objects which reward extra xp and these plants which increase weight you can carry. So if you see a little hut standing in the wilderness, chances are high that you are rewarded for exploring it. It's just a tiny thing but as Fluent wrote in the review: "So with all this said, what makes Nehrim *that* good is the fact that it really is larger than the sum of its parts."

I have played it, thank you very much. (With regards to the opening line)

Additionally, I'd have compared the learning points system to that of the Gothic series a little more (it is conceptually quite alien to the vanilla Elder Scrolls level-up system) and also made greater reference to the nature of the opening starting dungeon.

Nonetheless, a reasonably good piece of writing that tries to capture the essence of the Nehrim overhaul experience. Good job.

If this team releases a mod for Skyrim I'll finally have a reason to "replay" it. Properly tweaked Skyrim could be simply amazing (I know that for some of you it already is, but I never felt that way). Make me fear Dragons instead of running them down, and remove the level scaling. THEN I'll gladly play, if they also throw in a new story in a more varied environment I'll be even more happy.

I'm playing through Oblivion for the first time without mods and having a blast. A lot of the balancing problems of Morrowind have been adressed, and it's not yet the simplified herp derp system of character progression that Skyrim has. Also, let's face it, the traditional high fantasy setting with its standard art assets lends itself much better to modding.

Originally Posted by Sacred_Path
I'm playing through Oblivion for the first time without mods and having a blast. A lot of the balancing problems of Morrowind have been adressed, and it's not yet the simplified herp derp system of character progression that Skyrim has. Also, let's face it, the traditional high fantasy setting with its standard art assets lends itself much better to modding.

I enjoyed my first time in Vanilla Obilivion up until the point where every single bandit has Glass Armor…level scaling FTW. Or not. Then I just hurried through to finish the game, never to revisit it unmodded again. I never felt that way in Morrowind, had a blast the entire time the last time I did a complete run with the expansions, without mods. Balance issues? Well, yeah maybe, it gets kind of wacky when your jumping all over the place. But it's alot of fun.

I don't know if level scaling is in Morrowwind, if it is it's alot less obvious than in Oblivion or Skyrim. It totally kills my experience in the vanilla versions of those two (Skyrim actually does a pretty good job of keeping it a secret, but I would prefer it if it wasn't there. At all.)

I enjoyed the first half of Oblivion, but really lost interest after about the 3rd oblivion gate. The red tint and the boring world there became a grind, and since the entire game was basically focused on closing those gates, I just wasn't really interested. I also hated how all the weapons/armor was basically maxed out halfway through the game, and I thought all the NPCs were poorly designed/ugly. Never finished…

That said, I preferred the lush world of Oblivion and the design of dungeons better than Skyrim's cold desolation. Skyrim's world is beautiful at first, but then just gets depressing after several hours. It's like living in Norway, but without the hot blond chicks to balance it out.

I think the reason why you see the scaling in such a bad way is because the system in vanilla Oblivion is counter intuitive as I mentioned before.
If you do what you think is right for your character (like taking the skills as your mainskills which you actually use mostly) this will have a negative effect on your character. As all enemies level up together with you, you will get weaker each level compared to your opponents.
In order to raise the character properly you have to chose skills you do not normally use, then take pen and paper to note down the skillgains and once you got enough, you need to use your "mainskills" to enforce the levelup so you get the proper attributes.
As I said…worst system I have seen in any game.

Don't let the German voices put you off. It's really high quality voice acting, even if you can't understand it. And the translations for the most part are great. Definitely worth playing even if the voices aren't in English is what I'm trying to say .

Originally Posted by Fluent
Don't let the German voices put you off. It's really high quality voice acting, even if you can't understand it. And the translations for the most part are great. Definitely worth playing even if the voices aren't in English is what I'm trying to say .

Agreed, the German voice overs work fine, if you don't understand it at all it doesn't matter, just pretend it's a language only used in Nehrim.

Originally Posted by tomasp3n
I enjoyed my first time in Vanilla Obilivion up until the point where every single bandit has Glass Armor…level scaling FTW. Or not. Then I just hurried through to finish the game, never to revisit it unmodded again. I never felt that way in Morrowind, had a blast the entire time the last time I did a complete run with the expansions, without mods. Balance issues? Well, yeah maybe, it gets kind of wacky when your jumping all over the place. But it's alot of fun.

I don't know if level scaling is in Morrowwind, if it is it's alot less obvious than in Oblivion or Skyrim. It totally kills my experience in the vanilla versions of those two (Skyrim actually does a pretty good job of keeping it a secret, but I would prefer it if it wasn't there. At all.)

Level scaling isn't a terrible thing in itself, especially for an open world game. Level locked content kinda defeats the purpose of an open world, so it's very much a subjective preference. Some people want to feel all powerful and therefore they want to go back and stomp on some bandit's face. I know this is a huge deal for some people, so YMMV.

The first thing I noticed was how the world in Oblivion wasn't full of valuable items lying around everywhere like it was in Morrowind which, with the inclusion of trainers, made the game seem like one big joke.

I loved the environments and level design of Nehrim, but absolutely hated the storyline. Since the next game is a continuation of that storyline, I'll probably never play their sequel. Amazing level design though. If Nehrim allows you to totally skip the lame main quest, like Oblivion does, then I'd suggest that. You're basically forced to take the side of a major prikc. I wanted to kill him and didn't have any choice in the matter. Note that I played it day 1 of the English release, so they may have improved the game since I played.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
I loved the environments and level design of Nehrim, but absolutely hated the storyline. Since the next game is a continuation of that storyline, I'll probably never play their sequel. Amazing level design though. If Nehrim allows you to totally skip the lame main quest, like Oblivion does, then I'd suggest that. You're basically forced to take the side of a major prikc. I wanted to kill him and didn't have any choice in the matter. Note that I played it day 1 of the English release, so they may have improved the game since I played.

Thats the point of the game crpgnut. You are dammed if you do, and dammed if you don't. The game eludes to that as you play. Those who played the mod remember the dream sequences.

To put it bluntly Fate is guiding you. You are setting the stage for the future.